Memory Lane: My First Classroom

Yesterday I was looking through my old portfolio where I had pictures of my very first classroom (a whole 3 years ago, lol). My first year, I taught 6th grade science, and two 8th grade science intervention classes, in an inner city middle school. Our building was previously a high school, so my room was an actual science lab - not just a regular classroom. As ghetto as it was, I loved having the huge space, and having sinks in my room. Here are some pictures of my first year teaching in 2008-2009. Nothing fancy - I was still learning.

Beginning of the year bulletin board, and our daily warm up on the chalk board.

The front chalkboard. Heading, frayer model, daily objective.

The entrance, front chalk board, and beginning of the year bulletin board.

"Never leave your numbers naked." Great way to remind students to put a unit with their answers. They thought it was funny. :)

The entrance to my room.

Word wall, pencil sharpener, school info, etc. Basically our information center right inside the door.

The information center again next to the fume hood. Since we didn't use fume hoods in middle school, I used mine for storage and to post posters. :)

Bookshelf, aquarium, student work about properties of matter.

Bookshelf, globe, fire blanket, elephant pelvis. The teacher who had this room before me just left this bone there. Looks like an elephant pelvis to me, so that's what I tell the kids.

Students who did all their homework the entire 6 weeks got their names put on the Homework Heroes board for the next 6 weeks.

The back shelf was set up for a tools performance test. After that, I kept their science journals there, separated by class.

The exit (I had 2 doors to my room), and my filing cabinets.

The side chalk board behind my desk. This is where I wrote the activities and homework for the week, our 5E's, and the bell schedule.

The weekly agenda. We had a block schedule which is why I have the same activities written two days in a row.

We were required to post the 5E's for every lesson we did. With science, one lesson usually took two classes (and classes were about an hour and a half each).

Bulletin board with students work of bar graphs. We graphed the colors of our jelly beans.

On my strategies bulletin board, I posted winners of the science fair that were in my classes.

Students wrote a story from the perspective of a snowman for our water cycle unit.

Dollar Store Finds!

I wasn't planning on shopping today, but when I drove by the dollar store near my house, I saw that they were going out of business and everything was $0.19, so I absolutely had to stop. I love a deal! I could have gone crazy in that store, but I decided to behave myself. I bought only things for my classroom, and I only got things that I had a use for - I did not buy things on the chance that I may find a use for them later on (I do that sometimes too). I got all these goodies for less than $5.

I felt like I won the lottery. :)

Stickers.

Pencil grips to use as a reward.

Can always use magnets.

I think I ended up with about 20 containers total to organize my drawers.

Six place mats. Now this one I don't have an exact idea for, but I'll be putting paper on them and having the flowers as the border. I just don't know exactly what papers will go on them yet.

This is a makeup case I'll be using for paperclips, push pins, etc.

If I didn't have somewhere I needed to be, I'd have walked through the store a second time to see what I could come up with.

Vocab Display

My classroom this year is in a portable, and I don't have a lot of wall space which makes it difficult to post vocabulary cards. I actually got this idea from another teacher, but I used gallon size ziploc bags and duct tape to make a vocabulary chart.

I put the top to bags up and down, which was perfect for my metric and customary cards. The other four I put on sideways, making sure I didn't tape over the opening for changing out cards. The gallon size bags are the perfect size for our cards. And there's all kinds of colorful tape out there to make it pretty, or make it fit your theme. I change the vocabulary daily based on what is on the warm up for that day.